DEAR EDITOR:

We read that numerous roads and trails in Mill Creek Park are to be closed for years, (yes, years!) in an extensive program aimed at stopping the alleged pollution of the creek and its three lakes.

As a frequent park walker, I am not aware of a situation that would mandate a program of this massive scope.

Mill Creek already carries the effluent from the Boardman Sewage Treatment Plant as well as the far from pristine discharges of streams flowing into it from the east, west and south. And it flows into a river of questionable quality.

This would seem to be a huge program of dubious (to say the least) need.

The contractors might benefit, but will the public?

I suggest that these funds could well be spent on a serious upgrade of the park’s trails, which are in dire need of the removal of rocks and roots, and the filling in of soggy spots.

We also read of the continuing culling of the park’s white-tailed deer population.

Gone are the beautiful animals which were once so used to my passage that I could almost reach out and touch a trusting doe or fawn at times.

I would often even encounter a buck with an impressive rack of antlers.

The reason for the culling was said to be the effect the browsing animals have on vegetation.

Perhaps the park will shoot its squirrels next for eating too many acorns.

I don’t think the park ever had an accurate count of how many deer there were north of Route 224.

I am acquainted with a park where culling was necessary due to the threat of disease.

Years ago, Presque Isle Park in Erie, which is about the same size as Mill Creek Park, was said to harbor some 800 animals.

White tails flashed everywhere a hiker might look.

Mill Creek’s deer herd was never anywhere near that which Presque Isle once harbored.

I think that Mill Creek Park’s leadership is vastly overdoing its management prerogatives and is also going well beyond what are the dictates of common sense and a true regard for nature.

At the same time, it is raising the ire of the public which supports it. New leadership seems to be in order.

ROBERT R. STANGER

Boardman